I've always run that angle, personally.

All of my posts talk of the glorious battle for freedom. I was always the only one though, most tragically

I'm sorry, but I take offense to that entire bloody law, and it is not as 'simple' a matter as most seem to believe. From an IC perspective, yes, it makes perfect sense to have a constantly watched meld on Nil. However, you're not the one who has to spend pontentially hours on end sitting at the megalith on the off-chance that someone will assault that isn't Dysolis. how about another guild takes some time to sit complacently, twiddling their thumbs. Hell, why not the Nihilists, they are the guardians of the Plane.

Please realize, Nariah, that my ire isn't targetted towards you. It's towards the system in general.

And here we see the violence inherent in the system!

Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

Well, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!

I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!

I think that at the crux of the issue is the elite of both cities.

Look at the leadership of both cities. How are they different? I think your answer lies there.

You know, Mag has brought it on itself and Celest has been there too. Until recently it was Thoros/Celina and entourage every flipping night between 1-3 am central time. I know this because I'm around alot with a rank of 10. So much so that after about a week myself and several others took to looking at the clock around 12:30-1am my time and logging out because we were sick and tired of dying every night trying to defend when -most- of us were lowbies or noncombatants. I went away for pretty much a month irl and when I return it's Ethelon on Celestia, Ethelon on Celestia , Ethelon in Celest cheapshotting me while I enchant, Ethelon on Celestia, Ethelon in Celest etc. Then you add the event into the mix. It's called getting fed up! When you have a number of griefers in your city and they're doing their thing with no restraint you can't be surprised when the enemy snaps. I don't deny that Mag gets the same from some of the Celestians but COME ON since I started playing it's been back and forth, back and forth. This issue will never be solved and one side will forever think they're being griefed by the other whether it's true or no.

Case in point as I am typing this:

(Celest): Lysandus (from the Water Elemental Plane) says, "Ethelon on Celestia."

The third or fourth time since I logged in today.

It is not about easy, and Gorgogs being enemy location is more about fairness then anything else.

Desitrus: Good Lord, man, really? Off the top of my head, I can think of about ten people who are more than willing to help with any problem- Nariah, Sthai, Grench, Tya, Iytha, Melville, Shaddus, Sadye, ad nauseum. Between dross, rations, and 1/2 of whatever you drop in, I'm astonished you didn't think our power regulations were good- especially given that a lot of people think our power regulations are too lenient. *gasp* Roll an Ur'Guard next week and I'll see what I can do.

That said, the rest are things that have to be addressed. And they will be, IC.

Nariah: Karnagan has been on that freedom line with Grunts who want to RP for some time now. Have your people call my people.

Catarin: Mag's problems are mostly due to population imbalances and certain players being inactive at this time. Celest's attacks are completely justified IC, and there's no real way around that. OOC, there's not terribly much point in pretending that the events are your sole justification to kill the Demon Lords. If Celest's response to losing any event is costing Mag 9000 power minimum, then the end result, as you asked for in your post, is Magnagora not competing with Celest at all in events. Making them bone dry and boring in rapid fashion.

Fundamentally, the population imbalance has gotten to a point where the game IS getting boring. Domoths and villages are almost evenly split between Celest and Serenwilde (Angkrag not counting), Glomdoring and Mag would barely be able to compete in events with both populations combined, and the slightest pretext is used for making Mag spend 1 day out of a week just raising the Demon Lords. Not bashing, not influencing, not raiding, just working on essence. Much more if you count the recent spiking incident. It's not so much the conflict, as Celest removing the avenues to equalize the imbalance again. Conflict quests were nerfed for way less than this. Even I thought the Raziela event was over the top in getting Celest and Serenwilde to not be friends anymore, except its intent was apparently too subtle to have a lasting effect. The next event planned to try and equalize conflict in the game is probably going to be much more dire, and its coming is predictable like a sunrise.

EDIT: Meliana, there's a difference between solo raiding by tough targets and what's happening now. Narsrimation is a drag, yes, but at worst it's an inconvenience. I personally don't even mind the guy OOC. No one's blaming you for not attacking targets who are out solely to grief. But this is a massive nullification of an entire game population's work, repeatedly. It's pushing on the population imbalance until it goes over a cliff, and frankly I'm thinking that the eventual plot response to the lack of meaningful conflict is going to arrive in a brutal manner.

Hmm. Karnagan I dub thee 'Cassandra'.

"It had previously occurred to me that Elohora had taken the defiling of Raziela by Maeve rather lightly.

For every action, there is a reaction. And a Supernal's reaction... is quite a thing."

Something else that occured to me regarding appearances-

One of the early things I did when I stared here was read the histories on the website. The Fall of the Holy Celestine Empire/Taint Wars stuff in particular has a lot of draw to it.

As great as they are, those histories, for someone just arriving, are fairly centered on Celest, in terms of how the city is treated. Magnagora is ground zero for Kethuru, and at the end, we're left with Old Celest destroyed by a noble sacrifice, Ladantine's attempt at godhood defeated, Rowena's transformation into a cruel monster, and Serenwilde going isolationist.

It would be good to see a brief history of each city and commune after that fact on the website, explaining what each has become, and what they stand for. I mean, if you only had the website histories to go off of, what would you think of Magnagora?

Smart money says the Divine will step in after next week's DL killing. Up the invincibility period to two weeks or more.

Yeah cause...Celest is all about listening dogmatically to everything the Supernals tell us to do at this point. Mmm.

You may be right. The admin may decide that their previous stance of not having these events in order to force certain political outcomes was actually just a lie and they're going to be very heavy handed and force it in some huge drastic fashion. Maybe. I don't know.

But if that is the current plan of Magnagoran players, waiting on divine intervention, well, I suppose that explains a lot.

EDIT: And upping the time will likely not have the desired effect. Before it was complaining that they had to be raised every day. Now it's they have to be raised every week. Next it will be they have to be raised every two weeks. The frustration is with the pain it is to raise them. So that should be the focus in terms of mechanical tweaking.

@Krackenor - I never meant that as 'keep demesne on Nil' by the way. More like... 'Anyone, sit with your damn behind at the Megalith on Nil and SCAN and WHO every once in a while'. Doing that on Prime, may as well on Nil.

@Meliana - Thoros or Ethelon is not representative of the whole city's attitude. Just because they do it does not mean we approve or like it. I for one have no clue Thoros does that IC because I am never around at the time, how can I tell him to lay off then? And why would I? That's really the only counter raid we ever apparently do in an IC sense (not that I like the idea of 3am raids). And that Ethelon thing just a moment ago? ... He was trying to drag people -away- from griefing Earth AND gathering angels to convert into essence. Duhh

Magnagora's plan is to reraise the Necromentate and continue trying to do what they've been doing: keeping the DLs alive and playing the game.

Obviously Mag can't do that

I was referring to the new city scroll, which does specifically say a demesne needs to be maintained and watched at all times.

Revan is a noob.

No IC knowledge of repeated griefing EVERY night for IC years? I find that hard to believe. Also I didn't suggest you tell him to lay off( or didnt mean to anyway). I meant griefers run rampant doing what they want. To the other part: Meliana's 77 or so now, so thats dozens and dozens of OOC days that I remember Ethelon pulling his "kill an angel(or two) and run away maneuver ALL day long and more recently stealing into Celest to stir things up(OOCly I think ethelon's a sweetie. Thank you for not killing my bear! <3). I was using that quote to prove a point that he does it all the time regardless of what may or may not be currently going on IC. He hits Celestia just as much as any other time and he's not the only one. As I stated before you give as good as you take, it's rarely ever going to be -completely- even and one side will always feel slighted. I'm sure you've got lots of instances of Celestian griefing (aside from right now because it's pretty much payback for Raziela)

Kalas was/is probably the opposite.. be glad you weren't in a "Great"house.

Edit: I'm trying to come back, but it certainly would be different than before. I don't think I could handle the same bull as the last three years.

Magnagora is basically screwed unless mechanically Celest is restrained, because clearly they cannot do it themselves. The city guards couldn't stop this:

2008/04/25 05:07:20 - Narsrim slew Snaikka i'Xiia that was loyal to you.
2008/04/25 05:24:59 - Nydekion slew the esteemed scientist Tunika d'Murani that
2008/04/25 05:42:20 - Narsrim slew Snaikka i'Xiia that was loyal to you.
2008/04/25 06:28:11 - Narsrim slew Snaikka i'Xiia that was loyal to you.
2008/04/25 06:56:23 - Narsrim slew the esteemed scientist Tunika d'Murani that
2008/04/25 07:11:33 - Narsrim slew Snaikka i'Xiia that was loyal to you.
2008/04/25 15:39:36 - Narsrim slew Seritul d'Vanecu that was loyal to you.
2008/04/25 15:42:03 - Narsrim slew Lady Ardath n'Lochli that was loyal to you.
2008/04/25 16:06:05 - Narsrim slew Lady Ardath n'Lochli that was loyal to you.

Seriously, does Magnagora repeatedly attack loyals needed for quests? Narsrim goes beyond any standard to do this and the list of guards is even longer.

Magnagora has a culture that should be attractive to certain people, I found more help in Magnagora as Gabranth than I did as any of my Celest characters, half of them pawn you off onto a self help file, although the communes are better. The culture is inhibiting to some and I dislike mahy aspects of it, but I don't think rp is the reason.

The vast differences in power can be known to any newbie. Dysolis camps at the aetherplex to attack anyone from Magnagora and it has been iterated previously that Earth, Nil and neutral territories are free reign to be kill two or three times and forced to pray with an eye sigil. Is this normal? Should this be normal?

Magnagora is the weakest organisation and is growing ever weaker because there is little desire to defend against a vastly superior force. The recent revolt at Angkrag highlighted this, is it rp to stop magnagora AND glomdoring getting the village? Yes. Is it fun for anyone in those organisations to be up against the two larger organisations in a battle they simply cannot win? No. RP is no license to rampantly force Magnagorans to basically be behind in everything, which their failure to be involved in Domoths shows. People cannot show restraint, let alone orgs when their RP condones incessant griefing and oppression. Mechanically something needs to be done to stop the widdening gap or at least to stop the advantage Celest and Serenwilde gain while Magnagora struggles to retain the basics. They have not raised a vernal yet due to such worries over power, which the fall of the necromentate did naugh to allay fears over.

Magnagora needs more than just a cosmetic rebirth, it needs to be considered appropriately, as it hasn't recovered fully since I started playing, it has always been on the recieving end of raids and griefing, only now it is truly destroying morale.

So please don't say fix your city or it's your own fault, Magnagora cannot compete when it cannot be involved.

You misunderstand me. Our PLAN is to push back so our Nexus isn't completely inundated by Celestian attacks. What will happen plotwise, while it hasn't been spelled out in big fiery letters by the Gods, is a different matter. I'm sure the Domoths were not placed to share +8000 power between Seren and Celest, tiebreakers to be decided by a tickling contest.